2008 Annual Report

“Getting Ready
for the Darwin Bicentennial Celebration”

Dear Friends and Supporters of ARN:

We would like to take a moment
out of our busy schedule, and yours, to communicate news from this past year
and thoughts about the coming year. At the close of this report we discuss
several creative ideas on how to participate in the Bicentennial Celebration of
the birth of Charles Darwin (1809-2009) scheduled for 2009.

We have a broad charter at Access
Research Network covering a wide range of topics that fall under the general
category of science, technology and society. We are committed to quality
science education, helping students develop critical thinking skills, advancing
scientific research, ethical issues, environmental issues, academic freedom,
and exploring how science and technology interact with our culture at large.
But underlying all these topics is the lens through which these topics are
viewed.

The majority of the leaders in
the scientific and academic communities prefer to view these issues through the
lens of methodological naturalism, which assumes that all of life can be
explained through mechanistic, reductionist, and naturalistic processes. Our
charter is to view these same topics through the lens of intelligent design,
which assumes that the universe, and the life within it, is instead the result
of a purposeful, intelligent agent.

Science then, from an intelligent
design perspective, is about the business of looking for patterns in nature
that are best explained by intelligent causes, and reverse-engineering the
world around us to better understand how it works. We then apply those findings
to the advancement of science, technology and society.

At its core, this difference in
worldviews boils down to what we call the Darwin and Design debate. Which
features of our world are best explained by chance events and natural
processes, and which features are best explained by intelligent, purposeful
design? We would like to review a few key news stories from this past year that
we think shed further light on this age-old question (the underlined words
below are links to further information about these news stories that can be
viewed in the online version of this report posted at www.arn.org/report/2008.htm).

Leading
Biologists Marvel at the “Irreducible Complexity” of the Ribosome. In January 2008 the transcripts were
released from the previous summer’s “Life: What a Concept” meeting at Eastover
Farm in Bethlehem, CT. Craig Venter, a leader in genomics and the Human
Genome Project, stated: “We talked about the ribosome; we tried to make
synthetic ribosomes, starting with the genetic code and building them — the
ribosome is such an incredibly beautiful complex entity, you can make synthetic
ribosomes, but they don't function totally yet. Nobody knows how to get ones
that can actually do protein synthesis.” George Church, Professor of Genetics
at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Center for Computational
Genetics, similarly marveled at the complexity of the ribosome: “The ribosome,
both looking at the past and at the future, is a very significant structure —
it's the most complicated thing that is present in all organisms. Craig does
comparative genomics, and you find that almost the only thing that's in common
across all organisms is the ribosome. And it's recognizable; it's highly
conserved. So the question is, how did that thing come to be? And if I were to
be an intelligent design defender, that's what I would focus on; how did the
ribosome come to be?”

Origin
of Life Requires a Skilled Chemist. Origin
of life researcher, Leslie E. Orgel, published a paper posthumously in the January
issue of PLOSBiologyattacking self-organizational
models for the origin of life. Orgel, although not a proponent of intelligent
design, states that cyclic metabolic pathways are irreducibly complex systems
that require a large number of parts in order to function—including parts that
allow them to avoid many side pathways that will disrupt the cycle. In Orgel's
view, it is not plausible to contend that such complex systems, with all of
their numerous required components, would simultaneously come into existence.
Orgel concludes that many catalysts would be required for cyclic metabolic pathways and such
catalysts “could be constructed by a skilled synthetic chemist,” but it is very
questionable that they “could be found among naturally occurring minerals or
prebiotic organic molecules.”

Have
Cosmologists Lost Their Brains? Naked
brains floating in space, disconnected from reality – this describes the minds
of some modern cosmologists, lamented Dennis Overbye in a shocking article in the New
York Times, January 15. While attempting to be sympathetic to the smart
guys who can cover a blackboard with equations about higher dimensions, it was
clear he was about to call these guys nuts. His title: “Big brain theory: have
cosmologists lost theirs?” Some of the ideas being seriously proposed by
cosmologists include: disconnected observers in space (of which you might be
one, imagining you really are here on Earth); universes bubbling off in all directions
all the time; universes that make observers in a snap; reincarnation; and the
possibility of a quantum fluctuation leading to a bang that would destroy us
and the universe in a flash. According to Overbye, “If you are inclined to
skepticism this debate might seem like further evidence that cosmologists, who
gave us dark matter, dark energy and speak with apparent aplomb about
gazillions of parallel universes, have finally lost their minds.” Yet the
article describes the opinions of leaders in the field: Alan Guth, Andrei
Linde, Leonard Susskind, Lisa Dyson, and others, who debate their paradoxes and
imaginative scenarios in all seriousness, run impressive calculations, and
deduce alternate realities that could not be scientifically tested even in principle.
At least intelligent design theory attempts to work within the bounds of
observable evidence (fine-tuning, irreducible complexity, the explanatory
filter).

Design-based Biomimetics Yields Tangible Results. Biomimetic
research is based on the premise that the natural world is information-rich and
that reverse engineering methodologies are likely to be fruitful. The
significance of two articles published in the 22
February 2008 issue of Science is that the natural world does not just provide examples of
materials that are interesting to scientists and engineers - they demonstrate
"mechanical design principles". There is an underpinning rationale
which, when grasped, is of both theoretical and practical importance. It is not
just a case of finding a feature in the natural world that works, but of
recognizing holistic, information-rich designs in living things. Meanwhile the
July 8 issue of ScienceDaily reported that engineers are turning to marine biology for insight into building
better turbine blades and wings. The article reports that "the shape of
whale flippers with one bumpy edge has inspired the creation of a completely
novel design for wind turbine blades. This design has been shown to be more
efficient and also quieter, but defies traditional engineering theories."
Apparently small bumps on the leading edge of the flippers create vortices as
the whale moves through the water, and this uneven flow "helps to generate
more lift without the occurrence of stall, as well as enhancing maneuverability
and agility." Design-based methodologies in biomimetics are yielding
tangible results.

The
Altenberg 16. Freelance reporter Suzan
Mazur (Scoop, March
4) pulls back the veil on one of evolution's little known secrets —
Darwinism is dead as a theory of evolution: “It's not Yasgur's Farm, but what
happens at the Konrad Lorenz Institute in Altenberg, Austria this July promises
to be far more transforming for the world than Woodstock. What it amounts to is
a gathering of 16 biologists and philosophers of rock star stature – let's call
them ‘the Altenberg 16’ – who recognize that the theory of evolution which most
practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is
inadequate in explaining our existence. It's pre the discovery of DNA, lacks a
theory for body form and does not accommodate ‘other’ new phenomena.” Mazur
explores the views of the Altenberg 16 “self-organization proponents” and their
attack on Darwinism as they desperately search for another materialistic
explanation for life in a six-part E-Book.
Proceedings from the Altenberg summit are to be published by MIT Press in 2009.

Darwin’s
‘Tree of Life’ Declared Not Scientific. The
March 6 issue of ScienceDaily highlighted a new study, “Tree Of Animal Life Has Branches Rearranged.” The
article reported, “The study is the most comprehensive animal phylogenomic
research project to date, involving 40 million base pairs of new DNA data taken
from 29 animal species.” According to the article, the study yielded surprising
results: “Comb jellyfish -- common and extremely fragile jellies with
well-developed tissues -- appear to have diverged from other animals even
before the lowly sponge, which has no tissue to speak of. This finding calls
into question the very root of the animal tree of life, which traditionally
placed sponges at the base.” The fundamental problem for neo-Darwinism is that phylogenetic trees based upon one gene or
characteristic will often conflict with trees based upon some other gene or
characteristic. Furthermore morphology-based trees commonly
conflict with DNA-based trees. Meanwhile Lars Vogt contributed a thoughtful
analysis of contemporary evolutionary thinking in the February issue of Cladistics with a paper entitled: "The Unfalsifiability of Cladograms and its Consequences"
where he concludes “seeking phylogenetic trees does not represent a scientific
endeavor and cladograms represent no scientific but metaphysical
hypotheses."

Multifocal
optics for well-focused color vision in early vertebrates. TheJournal
of Experimental Biology (211, 1559-1564, 2008) reports “The presence of
at least four visual pigments . . .in the last common ancestor of jawed and
jawless vertebrates suggests that the earliest vertebrates were able to sample a
rich spectral light environment and enjoy the many advantages of color vision. Our
findings suggest that the eyes of these ancient animals were capable of forming
well-focused color images.” This should give Richard Dawkins (and others who
think that eyes evolved easily) something to think about, as the ability to
create well-focused color images with complex multifocal optical systems would
have had to evolve very early and rapidly in life history (Cambrian-Recent).

Expelled #1 Political
Documentary of 2008. Ben Stein’s Expelled rolled out in 1,000 theaters across the U.S. on April 18 and quickly climbed to
the number 1
political documentary of 2008. Citizens across the nation learned the cold
truth that academic freedom and free speech are not so “free” when it comes to
doubting Darwin. While the major news
outlets viciously attacked the movie (understandable since the film identifies
the media as part of the problem), the film revealed a systematic, unfair, and
deeply un-American suppression of criticisms of Darwinian theory and distortion
of any alternative thought in the academy. In response to the film over 17,000
people have signed the petition at www.academicfreedompetition.com.
(see our Expelled Super Bundle offer at the end of this report).

Slaughter of the Dissidents by Jerry Bergman. Just months after Expelled was
released in the theaters, Dr. Jerry Bergman’s new book established that
discrimination against Darwin doubters is not the whimsy of a couple of
filmmakers, but a pervasive pattern in our culture that qualifies as America’s
newest hate crime. Expelled reveals justthe "tip of the
iceberg" regarding the discrimination that exists in academic and media
communities against those who challenge Darwin's theory of evolution. With the
release of Jerry Bergman's new book, Slaughter
of the Dissidents, we are introduced to the rest of the Titanic-sized
iceberg. Bergman experienced the slaughter of his own career over thirty years
ago while teaching at Bowling Green University, which started him on a
life-long quest to document the academic and religious discrimination exhibited
against students, scientists and educators who dare to doubt Darwin. Bergman
interviewed over 300 people in his quest to document one of America's growing
hate crimes.

Biologic Institute Releases Stylus: A System for
Evolutionary Experimentation. Scientists
working at the Biologic Institute,
where researchers are exploring intelligent design concepts in biology from
experimental, computational, and theoretical perspectives, published a peer-reviewed paper in PLoS
One (June 4) on their state-of-the art open-source evolution simulation
program, Stylus.
Over the past decade there has been considerable hype about computer
simulations of Darwinian evolution. The most hyped is Avida at the MSU Digital Evolution
Laboratory. Avida researchers claim their work is not a simulation, but actually is Darwinian evolution in action. Why
is Stylus significant? Researcher Douglas Axe explains that if realism is important, Stylus shows how far Avida falls short as an
"instance of evolution." Stylus is also going to open new avenues of
research into how much or how little organisms can evolve and whether it really
is possible to go from the simplest building blocks of life to the more complex
and necessary functions of life without any guiding intelligence at all.

Louisiana Academic Freedom Act. Just two months
after Expelled hit the theaters, the Louisiana state senate passed a landmark academic freedom bill with
a 36-0 vote, protecting teachers that encourage critical thinking and objective
discussion about evolution and other scientific topics. Known as the Louisiana
Science Education Act, the bill was previously passed by the state’s House of
Representatives with a 94-3 vote. This year, six
states have considered academic freedom legislation designed to protect
teachers who teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary
theory.

A Molecular Clutch Discovered in the Flagella. The rotary motor in the E. coli bacteria has
long been the poster child of intelligent design theorists. Their case became
more compelling in 2008 as scientists reported in the June
20 issue of Science the discovery of a nanotechnology clutch that
disengages the bacterium flagellum's tail from the engine that powers its
rotation. The clutch “solution” is a neat, effective and potentially reversible
mechanism. The researchers have identified a gene epsE responsible for making
the EpsE protein which engages with the critical protein transmitting torque to
the flagellum and removing the link to the source of power. The measure of
complexity is in the unique shape of the EpsE protein and its ability to engage
with the torque-transmitting protein so that power is no longer transmitted.
The team is now “looking for a protein that disengages the clutch and
reconnects the motor.” The science community is well aware that nanotechnology
successes are achieved only by the application of sophisticated science and
intelligent engineering design.

“Spore” Video Game Explores Evolution and Intelligent
Design. Rather than debating the
evidence for Darwin and Design, curious minds from age 8 to 80 can now
experience the concepts in a new video game. Legendary “Sims” game creator, Will
Wright, released Spore and admitted that the interactive game about
evolution also puts the player in the role of an intelligent designer: “I think
the game is really trying to give an overview of evolution in a way that is
very toy-like and caricature-like. We put the player in the role of an
intelligent designer. When we first started the prototypes (of Spore) that
wasn't the case. We had the game carefully mutating things and it just was not
emotionally engaging. When we put the players in the role of intelligent
designer then people were much more emotionally attached to what they made.” The
release of the Spore game spawned
articles about ID and evolution in nearly every major news media from the NY
Times to USA Today to Wired.

A Call for an End to Pseudo-Darwinian Hype. In the September 9, 2008 issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences, Austin Hughes calls for an end to
pseudo-Darwinian hype: “Sequences of DNA provide documentary evidence of the
evolutionary past undreamed of by pioneers such as Darwin and Wallace, but
their potential as sources of evolutionary information is still far from being
realized. A major hindrance to progress has been confusion regarding the role
of positive (Darwinian) selection, i.e., natural selection favoring adaptive
mutations. In particular, problems have arisen from the widespread use of
certain poorly conceived statistical methods to test for positive selection.
Thousands of papers are published every year claiming evidence of adaptive
evolution on the basis of computational analyses alone, with no evidence
whatsoever regarding the phenotypic effects of allegedly adaptive mutations.”

Royal Society Expels Director of Education. Illustrating that academic freedom regarding origins
is a worldwide problem, the British Royal Society expelled its Director of Education in September for stating that students
should be exposed to concepts of creation and evolution. Professor Michael
Reiss, speaking at the British Association Festival of Science at the
University of Liverpool, estimated that about one in 10 children was from a
family which supported a creationist rather than evolutionary viewpoint. He
said his experience had led him to believe it was more effective to include
discussion about creationism alongside scientific theories such as the Big Bang
and evolution - rather than simply giving the impression that such children
were wrong. Reacting to his stepping down, Lord Robert Winston, professor of
science and society at Imperial College London, said: "I fear that in this
action the Royal Society may have only diminished itself: "This is not a
good day for the reputation of science or scientists.”

The Rise of the Non-material Neuroscience Movement. An article in New
Scientist (October 22) described a battle brewing over what controls
your brain: nature or your mind. The author identifies, with alarm, a growing
‘non-material neuroscience’ movement: “They are attempting to resurrect
Cartesian dualism – the idea that brain and mind are two fundamentally
different kinds of things, material and immaterial – in the hope that it will
make room in science both for supernatural forces and for a soul.” The article
reviews the work of non-materialist researchers and scholars Jeffrey Schwartz, Mario
Beauregard, Angus Menuge, J. P. Moreland and the Discovery Institute. The
author commented on an experiment Schwartz used to support the independent
existence of mind, saying, “these experiments are entirely consistent with
mainstream neurology”.

Paley’s Watch Found in Bacteria. A review article in Science (October 31) describes what is currently known about the circadian clock
present in cyanobacteria. Proteins are the “moving parts” of the clock. The
Authors describe “cogs and gears” in the “clockwork mechanism” evident in the
Kai-ABC proteins. Each protein, in turn, is made up of multiple parts,
composed of hundreds of amino acids. KaiC, for instance, is a barrel mechanism
with two donut-shaped rings, each made of six toothed parts that make it look
like a gear wheel. The clock runs on ATP energy pellets. It accumulates
hydrogen bonds through phosphorylation events that force it to “tick” like a
ratchet in one direction. It keeps an accurate 24-hour cycle, releasing its
energy for the next round in conjunction with feedback loops from the nucleus
and cytoplasm. A clock with cogs, gears and ratchets that keeps accurate time –
what more could William Paley wish for? The 18th century natural theologian
used the illustration of stumbling upon a watch in a heath as an example of
reasoning from design to a Designer – as from watch to watchmaker. Skeptics
like David Hume challenged such reasoning of the natural theologians as a mere
argument from analogy: living things are very different from mechanical
machines, he argued. One can only wonder how their debate would unfold with
the discovery of a ticking watch inside one of the simplest forms of life.

Atheists and Agnostics Defend ID. Darwin v. Design public debates took an interesting
turn in 2008 as atheists and agnostics took up the torch for ID and Christians
went to bat for Darwin. This surprising role reversal was most evident at a
November 7 debate
in Texas where agnostic Dr. David Berlinski, a well-know skeptic of
Darwinism and Design, and Dr. Bradley Monton, an atheist philosopher of physics,
both defended intelligent design, while theistic evolutionist Dr. Denis Alexander, a biochemist and editor of Science & Christian Belief, and well-known atheist and physicist Dr. Lawrence Krauss defended evolution. Monton
explains in a podcast
interview why intelligent design deserves a place at the table in the
scientific debate, despite extreme pressure to the contrary from his Darwinist
peers. Another example of this trend was agnostic philosopher and sociologist
Steve Fuller’s defense of ID in his newest book Dissent
over Descent and the ensuing public
debate about the book in the online pages of the New Humanist. Meanwhile atheist New
York University Law professor Thomas Nagel authors an article defending the constitutionality of teaching ID.

‘Junk’ DNA Proves Functional. An article in PhysOrg (November
4) is one among many this year that have claimed ‘Junk’ DNA now proves
functional. Repetitive strands of DNA, seemingly lacking in information, have
been shown to be crucial either in regulating genes or providing binding sites
for RNA transcription machines. Another article in Nature (May 22) indicates a function for mouse pseudogenes in regulating gene
expression by means of the RNA interference pathway.

Two-Stroke Machine Discovered in the Cell. Proteins need a protected space to fold, and the cell
provides it: the GroEL-GroES chaperone. Chaperonins are large, complex proteins shaped somewhat like a barrel with a
lid. When a newly-joined chain of amino acids comes off the ribosome
assembly line, it is subject to damage from the beehive
of activity going on in the cytoplasm. It needs a quiet place
to fold. The chaperone lid opens, the polypeptide enters, the lid closes,
and safe inside, the chain collapses into its precise shape it needs to
function. Then the lid opens and the protein exits>. More
details keep coming in about this “protein dressing room” as scientists
continue to probe its secrets. Two new papers in
the November 6 issue of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences by a team at University of Maryland and College Park reveal that this is no
passive cavity. The system acts like a two-stroke engine with two timers.

Celebrating the Darwin
Bicentennial

What
do Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln have in common? They were both born on the
exact same day (February 12, 1809), and their Bicentennial Birthdays will be
celebrated in 2009. Darwin enthusiasts are tying Darwin to Lincoln and
putting Darwin on a pedestal as the greater liberator. Robert Stephens,
an American who in 1995 founded the annual Darwin Day Celebrations, was
interviewed on BBC. The reporter asked how best to celebrate Darwin
alongside Lincoln. Stephens answered, “Feb. 12, 1809 was a very good day for
our planet because Lincoln became the great emancipator of the slaves in
America, and Darwin became the great emancipator of the human mind!"

And
the celebration will not end in February. In fact it will build to a second
climax on November 24th. That date marks the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s Origin of Species. Just check out the cascade of
festivities planned in dozens of countries at www.DarwinDay.org and www.Darwin200.org

I
don’t know about you, but to me, celebrating Darwin as the great emancipator of
the human mind seems to be a bit of a reach. Especially after reading the news
stories above from this past year. Darwin’s tree-of-life declared unscientific,
Darwinism declared dead as a theory of evolution by the Altenberg 16, and widespread
discrimination against Darwin doubters. From my vantage point it appears
Darwin is the great enslaver of the human mind, not the great liberator. As a
culture we are stuck on a 150 year old theory that no longer fits the data,
even though the theory has been modified many times to try and force it to fit.
Science has moved on and left Darwin’s molecule-to-man theory behind.

Standing on Darwin’s Shoulders

But
rather than demonize Darwin as some want to do, or put him on a pedestal as the
great emancipator of the human mind as others want to do, I recommend a third
alternative. I recommend we stand on Darwin’s shoulders during this coming
Bicentennial year and look to the future. What do I mean by “Standing on
Darwin’s Shoulders”? Darwin gave us several gifts, and I think we should
graciously accept those gifts for what they are and move on. First, he gave us
the gift of observation. Darwin was a naturalist of the highest order and his
ability to observe and document the natural world is something we should all
aspire to.

Second,
Darwin was a rhetorical genius. His ability to use the success of the British
artificial breeding industry to build broad support for his concept of natural
selection was brilliant. In a nutshell Darwin gave us a very successful
formula in his Origin of Species for overthrowing the current scientific
paradigm. We would be well served to study his formula carefully as we attempt
to replace his theory of random mutations and natural selection with a theory
of design.

The
third gift Darwin gave us was the courage to put forth a bold idea. While some
of his ideas have advanced our understanding of the world we live in, we have
learned over the past 150 years that it is not the whole picture. There must be
something else that explains how life originated from non-life. There must be
something else that explains where the gigabyte of information in our DNA comes
from. There must be something else that explains why the laws of physics and
our universe appear to be finely tuned for our existence. So let us stand on
Darwin’s shoulders and have the courage to proclaim our own bold ideas of
design in nature to which the evidence continues to point.

Darwin Bicentennial Celebration Party Favors

Darwin
Balanced Teaching Bookmarks (Free):
We’ve put together some party favors to help you celebrate the Darwin
Bicentennial in 2009. The first is our Darwin Featured Author page at ARN (www.arn.org/authors/darwin.html).
Here you can find links to free online editions of Darwin’s major books, as
well as audio versions you can listen to. I must admit that it requires some
mental fortitude to read Origin of Species from cover to cover, but
those who do will be rewarded with some little gems like this quote from the
introduction:

We
are in such complete agreement with Darwin’s sentiments about teaching the pros
and cons of his own theory that we have put this quote on a bookmark that you
can download for free at the bottom of the ARN Darwin author page and
distribute far and wide. You can also order this quote on a t-shirt or coffee
mug at www.cafepress.com/accessresearch/953427.

Darwin
Bicentennial Celebration: A Retrospective Look at the Origin of Species($25). For 2009 we are
re-releasing our interview with John Angus Campbell, one of the world’s leading
authorities on the rhetoric of Charles Darwin. In this one
hour DVD Dr. Campbell reveals why Darwin’s rhetoric was so persuasive in
overturning the origins theory of the day, even though his data was lacking in
so many ways. After watching this interview, you will know more about Origin
of Species than 99% of the world’s population, you will appreciate
Darwin’s talents and gifts to us, and you will be able to articulate his bold
idea and why it is not the whole story.

Expelled Super Bundle ($50). To
further help you celebrate the Darwin Bicentennial we’ve put together the Expelled Super Bundle to highlight the lack of
academic freedom that exists today to explore both sides of Darwin’s theory, as
he advocated. In addition to the Expelled DVD, the Super Bundle includes
a copy of Dr. Jerry Bergman’s new book Slaughter of the Dissidents,
which dives even deeper into the issues raised in Expelled. To make
this bundle even sweeter we are throwing in free copies of three of the best
DVD documentaries on intelligent design: The Privileged Planet, The Case for
a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Purchased separately these
products would cost $125, but since we want to help get you in the party mood
for 2009, the entire bundle can be yours for only $50.

ID
DVD Give Away. Finally,
as our way of saying “thank you” for your year-end donation to the ongoing work
at ARN, we would like to send you a free set of the three ID documentary DVDs for
each $25 you donate. I can’t think of a better party favor to be handing out
during the 2009 Darwin Bicentennial Celebration than The Privileged Planet,
The Case for a Creator, & Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Just indicate
on the reply form how many sets you would like with your donation.

For the staff here at ARN,Dennis Wagner
Executive Director

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